Author’s Note:

Thanks all for the comments on Friday post, I haven’t decided what I’ll post that day, but I am leaning towards some kind of continuation story. Couldn’t think of what to post tonight, so went to the writing prompt app on my phone and came up with this post. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a story idea for later. 🙂 Hope everyone is having a great night!

Happy writing!

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Writing Prompt # 34: You are at a restaurant when someone you know shows up. They make their distaste for you evident to the people you are with.

I was on a date with my boyfriend. I got the fried chicken with mashed potatoes. The potatoes were good, but the chicken was a bit dry and stringy. I chewed on a forkfull as I watched the steak wander around in my boyfriend’s mouth. Maybe we’d been too quick to make things official, I guess I didn’t realize how narrow his face was, how his mouth looked like a duck when he chewed. I choked on the bite of food in my mouth as I saw a body appear next to his left shoulder. I saw a bright pink scarf and followed it up to a bright, shiny face, and pink lipstick. Her face literally shown, like a Angel’s, I’d forgotten the way her blond hair framed her face, the way her blonde curls bounced and curved next to her upper lip. The place where I had kissed her freckles dozens of times.

“Jewel, God,” I choked on my chicken as Andrew glanced up at her standing behind him. “What are you doing here?”

“I might say the same to you,” she said with that pucker of her pink mouth. I never understood how she managed to be so sweet and so mean at the same time.

I stirred potatoes around on my plate, mushed them into soggy green beans. “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”

“Oh, I think you know,” she said.

Andrew glanced up at her, eyes narrowed. “Have we met before?”

“Andrew, this is Jewel. She’s an…old friend of mine,” I said.

“Ex-girlfriend,” she clarified, with a hand on her hip. I tried to hold back my laughter as Andrew choked on a his water.

I tried my sweetest smile. “Did I forget to mention her, sweetie?”

His duck mouth pursed with obvious distaste. “I think we ought to go home. Are you finished?”

I looked sadly down at my chicken. “It tasted like shoe anyway.”

Jewel was standing there silent during our exchange. As we got up, she gave me this look. It was a look that lasted a second, but felt like a lifetime for me. “We should talk,” she said.

I pulled on my coat, as Andrew stood there, his eyes dark. “Later,” I murmured.

“Are you ready yet?” said Andrew.

I gave him a dark look. It was cold outside, negative two degrees last time I checked. It was a kind of cold that really did bite at the extremities. If my boyfriend was sending out chills, Jewel’s expression was warm. Probably warmer than it should have been, given the situation. I didn’t know what to make of that.

“Later,” I murmured again, as her eyes followed me out the door. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and sighed. “Later.”

It was a comfort knowing I would no longer be talking to my myself anymore.